Document authentication system utilizing a transparent label

ABSTRACT

This invention relates to a document authentication concept wherein a transparent tape having encoded text thereon is applied to the document. The encoded text printed on the transparent tape is printed with invisible ink so that the message thereon is not visible to the unaided eye. Preferably, the ink is visible in the infrared range. With such a combination, the authentication medium can be applied to a document that has a predetermined format so that the tape can be placed over a portion of the text and the latter will still be readable.

This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/090,671 filed on May24, 1993, now abandoned.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

There are many different types of documents issued by governmentagencies that authorize the holder of such documents to performauthorized tasks or grant rights to the holder of such a document.Examples of such documents are driver's licenses, passports, entryaccess badges, identification cards and the like. In issuing suchdocuments, it is desirable to have them of a convenient size, whileincluding information necessary for identifying the holder and therights conferred. With these two requirements, documents issued bygovernment agencies not only will have a defined format, but the textualinformation printed thereon is dense, thereby leaving little or no roomfor any additional information to be printed thereon.

A problem frequently encountered by government officials is the forgingof government issued documents. With the advent of computers and refinedprinters that are available at a relatively low cost, the incidence offorgery has proliferated. Although there are processes where coatingsare applied to documents to prevent copying, this does not end with theproblem of forgery. Various schemes have been proposed to providesecurity to government issued documents so as to inhibit forgeries ofsuch documents. One such scheme is to use encryption so that a code canbe derived that is based upon the information on the face of thegovernment issued document. Unfortunately, because of the limited spacenormally available in such documents, such a scheme has provenunattainable. Clearly, it would be advantageous to provide a scheme forimparting security to a government issued document that would overcomethe inhabitations caused by the predetermined size and defined format ofsuch documents. Also, it would be advantageous to be able to carryhidden encrypted information and in determining authenticity to of thedocument.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A scheme has been devised whereby government issued documents can haveencrypted or encoded data thereon without interfering with the format ofthe document. The encoded or encrypted data is printed on a transparenttape with invisible ink. The ink becomes visible when exposed to eitherultra violet light or infra-red light depending upon the dyes in theinvisible ink. In preparing the label, the data on the document isscanned by a reader (scanner), and the information derived therefrom isencoded. A code is then devised to be printed upon the transparentlabel, and is done so with invisible ink. The transparent label is thenapplied to the document and because of the use of the invisible ink, onecan read the text covered by the transparent tape.

When one wishes to determine the authenticity of the document, thatperson is provide with a device that will direct light of appropriatewavelength onto the label so that the ink becomes visible. The devicewill also have a decoding capability so that the operator can determineif the government document is genuine and the holder of the document isthe person to whom the document was issued.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a typical drivers license;

FIG. 2 is a view similar to FIG. 1 showing a label with data printedthereon which is attached to drivers license of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is functional block diagram of a device for printing data on alabel; and

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of a device for reading dataprinted of the label of FIG. 2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

This invention is concerned with the verification of government issueddocuments such as driver's licenses, passports, entry passes,identification cards and the like. The invention is described inconjunction with a driver's license, but it will be appreciated that theprinciples of the invention can be applied to other types of documents,whether the same are governmental or industrial issued documents, solong as the documents are for the purpose of identifying a right orprivilege to which the issuer thereof is entitled.

With reference initially to FIG. 1, a document 10 in the form of adriver's license is shown having a photograph 12 of the person to whomthe license was issued. The document 10 can be made of a single layer,or sheet, or a plurality of layers that are laminated together. Adocument composed of a single layer or multiple layers in thisspecification, including the claims, will be referred to collectively asa sheet. The driver's license also contains other data such as the statein which the license has been issued 13, the operator number 14, theexpiration date 16, the license type 18, the birth date of the recipient20, the gender 22 of the recipient, the name of the recipient 26, theaddress of the recipient 28 and issuer's identification data 30. It willbe noted that the driver's license has a dense data field for the itemsthat were just referenced. As such, it would be difficult to placeadditional information on the face thereof, as it is necessary that thedocument 10 be of convenient size. As a consequence, it is within thecontemplation of this invention to provide a transparent label 34 havingencoded data 36 printed thereon, as shown in FIG. 2 that will havecorrespondence to the data printed on the document 10. The encoded data36 can include encrypted data, a bar code, or any other convenientformat. As shown, the encoded message 36 is in the form ofalpha-numerics. The label 34 is made of a transparent polymeric materialsuch as polyvinyl acetate, polyethylene, polyterephthalate and the likeand the ink with which the data 36 is printed is an invisible ink whichbecomes visible upon exposure to either ultraviolet light or light inthe infrared region. Although the transparent label 34 can be made of anumber of materials and the inks can be any of a number of commerciallyavailable inks, it is necessary that the materials chosen must becompatible with one another. By invisible ink is any ink that is notvisible to the unaided eye or one that is transparent. Reference can behad to U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,147 for an example of an invisible inkresponsive to infra-red light.

Invisible inks are commercially available from a member of supplierssuch as Shannon Luminous Materials of Santa Ana, Calif., AmericanUltraviolet Company of Murray Hills, N.J., American Coding and MarkingInk Company of Plainfield, N.J. and U.V.P. Ink of San Gabriel, Calif.

With reference to FIG. 3, a device 40 is shown whereby the label 34 canbe printed with the appropriate data. The device includes a scanner 42that scans the data on the driver's license 10 that is to be used forpreparing the encoded data message 36 so that there is a correspondencebetween the data on the driver's license and the data represented by theencoded message 36. The operator number 14, the expiration date 16, theoperator's name 26 and the operator's address or any combination thereofcan be used as data for the encoded message 36. In addition, thephotograph 12 can be scanned. An example of a code that could be used onlabel 34 is the PDF 417 code provided by Symbol Technology Inc. Withsuch scanning an encoded message would be printed upon the label 34which upon decoding would reproduce the photograph 12. Needless to say,the message 36 need not be encoded, but may simply duplicate data on theface of the document ID.

After the driver's license 10 is scanned, the data is sent to an A/Dconverter 44 to convert the received signal from analog to digital.Optionally, the data can then be compressed by a data compressor 45 ifthe amount of data is too voluminous. Thereafter, again optionally, thedata can then be encrypted by an encryptor 48, following which the datawould be encoded whether it is encrypted or not, by an encoder 50. Afterthe data is encoded, a label printer will print the encoded message upona transparent label 34 using invisible ink. The label printer will alsoinclude structure capable of applying an adhesive to the label.Preferably, the adhesive is applied to the side of the label where theencoded message 36 has been printed in invisible ink, so that theprinted portion of the label will not be subjected to abrasion.

In an alternative embodiment, where the document 10 is formed fromlaminated layers with the last layer being transparent, the encodedmessage can be printed on such layer. Preferably, this message 36 isprinted on the inside surface of the laminated layer.

When a determination is to be made as to the authenticity of a document10, the examiner will be provided with a device 60 such as that shown inFIG. 4. The device includes a scanner 62 that is capable of emittinglight either in the infra-red region or ultra violet region, dependingupon the invisible ink that had been applied to the transparent label34. The scanner will be moved relative to the document to be scanned andlight will be reflected from the document to the scanner to create datain the form of an image. The data from the scanner is then decoded bydecoder 64, passed through decryptor 66, if the information had beenencrypted, and subsequently the decoded message will be shown on adisplay 68. If the data on the display corresponds to the data on thedocument 10, the examiner will then have proof that the holder of thedocument 10 is the proper party. On the other hand, if there is nomatch, then the examiner would be alerted that he may be dealing with aforged document.

In another embodiment, the label 34 can be printed with a magnetic inkto form the message 36 rather than invisible ink and appropriateequipment could be provided for reading the magnetic message.

In addition to the data on the document 10, other information can beprinted on the label to provide a hidden message. For example,information can be printed relative to past traffic violations or priorunlawful activities. Clearly, one would not desire such information beprinted on the face of a document.

Thus, what has been shown and described is a concept whereby a documentissued by the government or an industrial concern can be provided withmeans for authentication without interfering with the format of such adocument.

The above embodiments have been given by way of illustration only, andother embodiments of the instant invention will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art from consideration of the detailed description.Accordingly, limitations on the instant invention are to be found onlyin the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A document having provision for determiningauthentication thereof, comprising:a) a sheet having human visual textprinted thereon; b) a transparent label having information printedthereon that is attached to the sheet, said label being smaller thansaid sheet; c) a bar code containing information derived from the visualtext, said information is different from the visual text information,said bar code information is printed upon the transparent label withinvisible ink to embed authentication of the document in a manner notvisible to the unaided human eye; and and d) said bar code printed uponsaid transparent label has a correspondence to at least a portion ofsaid text printed on said sheet wherein said bar code that is printed onsaid label has a predetermined form.
 2. In a method of providing a databearing document having provision for authentication thereon, the stepscomprising:a) scanning a document to create a bar code; to derive datatherefrom; b) printing a bar code containing at least a portion of thebar code derived data onto a transparent label with invisible ink, saidlabel being smaller than said document; and c) applying the thus printedtransparent label to the document.
 3. The method of claim 2 furtherincluding the step of encoding data derived from scanning the documentand printing encoded data on the transparent label with invisible ink.4. The method of claim 2 wherein ink visible in the infra-red region isapplied to the transparent label.
 5. The method of claim 2 wherein inkvisible in the ultra violet region is applied to the transparent label.